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Arrogant but brilliant doctors have occupied a timeless place in popular imagination. Gifted with a talent for medicine, characters like Marvel’s Dr. Strange and Grey's Anatomy surgeon Christina Yang spend every shift taking heat from their colleagues and patients alike for their lack of empathy, inflated egos, and pursuit of greatness—all at the expense of someone’s emotional well–being.
Unless you’re living under a literal rock, you’ve probably noticed the extent to which artificial intelligence has taken over our daily lives. All Google searches come with a (questionable) AI summary, household appliances like dishwashers have started integrating AI, and AI–generated images are all over the internet, fooling our older relatives every day. Necessarily, as AI has entered our daily lives, it has also become increasingly prevalent in media, with major discussions over its use in scriptwriting, AI–generated “art,” and even completely AI–generated actors taking place over the last couple of years. However, the idea of AI as a theme in film and media as a whole has been a prevalent topic far longer than there has been tangible AI in the public sphere. These predictive stories, although not perhaps the deepest films ever made, confront issues we still ponder today, and are incredibly entertaining while doing so.
War Machine arrives on Netflix with the kind of blunt–force appeal its title promises: heavy artillery, heavier stakes, and a lead performance built like a tank. Starring Alan Ritchson as an unnamed sergeant, the film begins as a familiar entry in the modern military action canon before swerving—sometimes effectively, sometimes clumsily—into something stranger. It’s a movie that both wants to be a boots–on–the–ground war story and a high concept, sci–fi survival thriller. For long stretches, that ambition works. But in the end, War Machine becomes another example of a film that can’t quite resist setting up the next installment instead of fully delivering on its own.
Sorry, maybe I should rephrase. What is a video game adaptation supposed to do?
For a moment, it looked inevitable that Netflix would become the owner of Warner Bros., but that’s not how it played out. On the surface, the outcome is straightforward: Company A absorbs company B and becomes monstrously bigger. But what does this deal signal beyond the transaction itself? Is this a one–off bidding war or part of a larger shift in how Hollywood is reorganizing around streaming? At least for now, streaming is not taking over Hollywood; Hollywood is consolidating in order to keep up.
In an era defined by likes, streams, and shrinking attention spans, horror continues to be an example of tried and tested evergreen content—content that stays fresh, relevant, and keeps us coming back for more. There is something timeless and familiar about supernatural spirits, axe–murderers, and the undead—for this reason, they are stories that never die.
What is the point of award shows? To a pessimist, it is a room full of adults deciding which other adults deserve tiny gold statues for pretending to cry on camera—all while wearing outfits whose price tags could fund a small charity drive. To an optimist, it is a celebration of the human race: our ability to create art and make strangers feel emotions they have never experienced. The truth, like most things in Hollywood, probably sits somewhere in the middle.
Over 90 years after Bride of Frankenstein (1935) turned a silent, two–minute performance into one of cinema’s most enduring images, Maggie Gyllenhaal is revisiting the myth from a different angle. The Bride!, which arrives in theaters March 6, stars Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s creature and Jessie Buckley as both Mary Shelley and the titular Bride—an intentional echo of Elsa Lanchester’s dual role in the original film. Where James Whale’s version is essentially about the Bride in name only, Gyllenhaal’s film shifts the emphasis away from horror, instead focusing on autonomy, companionship, and identity.
How many films are truly timeless? How many can withstand the test of time without becoming artifacts? How many are interesting, perhaps, but trapped in the anxieties of the moment that produced them? Horror, more than any other genre, almost never achieves that kind of timeliness. Its monsters age, its metaphors calcify, and its fears grow transparent. Its power comes precisely from its responsiveness to contemporary fear. What once terrified people becomes revealing—not necessarily because it was poorly made, but because it was too honest. And yet, that’s what makes horror so culturally valuable. It’s the genre most willing, most suited, and most efficient at presenting our society in visceral forms. If horror rarely ages gracefully, it’s because it’s doing its job too well.
I’ve never seen Game of Thrones. Not because I recoiled from the gory massacres or incestuous politics, but simply because I missed the moment. Medieval armor and knights on horseback never called to me the way lightsabers and spaceships did.
With the rise of streaming services, attention has become the most valuable currency in film, and familiarity is often the safest investment. So, producers and directors turn to elements other than a brand–new story to make a film stand out: star studded casts, hybrid genres, or even the nostalgia of a legacy sequel.
At the beginning of January, over 17.2 million people traveled to Ohio, Squamish, New Orleans, Tuscany, Barcelona, and New York. And the best part? They were able to do it all in under two hours, without leaving their homes.
Thirty years ago, in December, a young Casey (Drew Barrymore) burnt popcorn so badly that it caught fire and one of the most iconic film franchises of all time was born. As Scream 7 releases this year, it pays to take a second and reminisce on the series’ journey to this point. The original Scream (1996) is a near–perfect movie, combining the traditional elements of slashers like Halloween and Friday the 13th with a healthy dose of pithy, self–referential humor. Although the magic of the first film will never be replicated—due to a severe lack of Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard)—Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and a continuously evolving cast of characters have, in one way or another, fought constant iterations of Ghostface longer than most people at Penn have been alive. In that time, Sidney has grown up, but not away, from her past, which continues to haunt her. The last couple of installments of the Scream franchise have been directed by Matt Bettinelli–Olpin and Tyler Gillett—who abandoned their work on hit film Cocaine Bear in favor of directing Scream (2022)—and breathed new life into the franchise that was caught in dire straits after Scream 4 (2011) and the (deserved) downfall of Harvey Weinstein.
Have you ever wished that the world’s elite would just explode into puddles of blood and stop bothering us already? Me too! (Legally, that was a joke.) Although this is a faraway fantasy, considering that, scientifically, these things don’t just happen, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)—the long–awaited sequel to 2019’s Ready or Not—allows us to dream for just a little while.
Somewhere between a missed train in Switzerland and a CGI trophy, Jet Lag: The Game figured out how to make modern media feel personal again. What looks like a group of friends yelling in airports is, in reality, a carefully engineered hybrid—part game show, part hangout, part branding experiment—that understands its audience far better than most prestige television ever has. To dismiss it as novelty content is to miss what makes it one of the most interesting experiments in modern media. Jet Lag isn’t just a travel competition or a reality show—it’s a carefully constructed hybrid that sits between traditional television and creator–driven content.
Lace up your Nikes and get ready to ball.
I arrived at the early screening of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights ten whole minutes before it began, yet nearly every seat was already taken. With only the front row available, I had to crane my neck to see the screen. Despite this less than ideal viewing circumstance, the long–awaited film swept me away into a world of love, yearning, and, of course, desire. Despite oftentimes straying from the source material, the emotion infused in every moment of the film made it well worth the neck pain. And the reactions of the crowd, filled with readers and movie buffs alike, seemed to agree with me. Wuthering Heights is an exceptional reimagination of the classic tragedy, using raw emotion and a distinctive aesthetic style to enthral all audience members alike, regardless of whether they’ve read the book.
It shouldn’t really come as a surprise: Amassing a total of 73 million followers across the internet, Mark Fischbach, alias Markiplier, released his first feature film, Iron Lung, in 4,000 theaters nationwide on Jan. 30. Written, directed, and acted in by Fischbach, it is already, in no uncertain terms, a massive financial success. With a budget of only $3 million, its opening weekend saw a domestic gross of $17.8 million and an additional $3 million in international profits.
The box office for horror in 2026 is already off to a strong start. With titles like 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come, Scream 7, and The Strangers: Chapter 3 all either out or releasing later this quarter, horror continues to be a reliable genre for theatres to fill seats.
The term “prestige television” used to mean big ambition and slow rhythm, as if each episode was a movie. The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad—these were dramas about institutions, morality, and power, all told through the highest cinematic craft. Having cable access to such art felt too good to be true.
Solutions by The State News